urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Monday, May 20, 2013

Global Retailers Join Safety Plan for Bangladesh

STEVEN
GREENHOUSE and JIM YARDLEY

Under mounting pressure to improve working conditions in
Bangladesh’s garment factories, several of the world’s largest apparel
companies agreed on Monday to a landmark plan to help pay for fire safety and
building improvements after the collapse last month of the Rana Plaza factory
complex, which killed more than 1,100 people.

The
agreement, hailed by labor and consumer groups as a major breakthrough, came as
the Bangladeshi government also took steps to respond to the April 24 disaster
at RanaPlaza
outside Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. In the
last two days, the government has pledged to raise wages for garment workers
and change labor laws to make it easier to form trade unions.

The
parallel announcements by global brands and the Bangladeshi government were a
significant shift: For years, Bangladesh
has seen some of the worst practices in the global garment industry. Wages are
the lowest in the world, starting at roughly $37 a month. Factory conditions
are often unsafe. Yet global brands have often sought to deflect any direct
responsibility for the problems, while the government has often been tepid in
protecting worker rights.

But the RanaPlaza
disaster, the deadliest in the garment industry’s history, has created
tremendous pressure for change. On Monday morning,the Swedish
retail giant H&MandInditex,
owner of the popular Zara chain, endorsed the safety plan. Within hours, the
large Dutch retailerC&Aalso
joined the agreement, as did the low-cost British retailersPrimarkandTesco.

“Fire
and building safety are extremely important issues for us, and we put a lot of
effort and resources within this area,” said Helena Helmersson, head of
sustainability at H&M. “With this commitment we can now influence even more
in this issue. We hope for a broad coalition of signatures in order for the
agreement to work effectively on the ground.”

H&M
is the largest purchaser of garments from Bangladesh, and its endorsement was
seen as influential to other brands. The agreement calls for independent,
rigorous factory safety inspections with public accountability and mandatory
repairs and renovations underwritten by Western retailers. It also enhances the
roles played by workers and unions to ensure factory safety.

“H&M’s
decision to sign the accord is crucial,” said Scott Nova, the executive
director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory-monitoring group in Washington that is
backed by 175 American colleges and universities. “They are the single largest
producer of apparel in Bangladesh,
ahead even of Walmart. This accord now has tremendous momentum.”

Labor
groups and others were already trying to pressure other big brands, including
Walmart and Gap, to sign onto the agreement. “We call on these companies to do
the right thing on behalf of the more than 1,250 textile workers killed in
Bangladesh factory disasters in the last six months, including Rana Plaza,
where the tragedy is still unfolding,” said Philip J. Jennings, the general
secretary of the UNI Global Union, the international association of trade
unions. “This is black and white, life and death.”

Gap has
been the target of an online petition that obtained more than 900,000
signatures in support of the agreement. But the company has resisted signing
on, objecting to the agreement’s legally binding nature and arguing that it had
already hired a fire inspector and promised $22 million in loans for factory
improvements.

PVH, the
parent company of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Izod, announced it would
sign the deal, an expanded version of a proposal that PVH had already signed.
The new plan lasts five years, while the previous one was to last only two. PVH
also announced on Monday that it would contribute $2.5 million to underwrite
factory safety improvements as part of the new plan.

Meanwhile,
Bangladesh’s
cabinet on Monday approved changes in labor laws. Gowher Rizvi, a top adviser
to Bangladesh’s
prime minister, said the changes — which still require approval by Parliament —
are part of a broader government effort to come into compliance with
international labor standards and improve on-the-job conditions.

“Worker safety and worker welfare
have now been brought into the forefront,” Mr. Rizvi said in a telephone
interview. He said discussions on these changes predated the RanaPlaza
collapse but agreed that the disaster had intensified the pressure for reforms.

“This is
the goose that lays the golden egg,” he said of the garment industry’s
importance to Bangladesh.
“Don’t kill it. We have to strengthen it. We have to nurture it. Nurturing it
means fair treatment of the workers.”

Bangladesh is now the world’s
second-leading garment exporter, trailing China. Its low wages and lack of
regulation have helped it attract billions of dollars in orders from Western
retailers and apparel brands. Not only are wages the lowest in the world, but
labor unions, which face impediments in organizing, are largely absent in
garment factories. Some workers who have tried to organize unions have been
dismissed or harassed.

Mikail
Shipar, the country’s labor secretary, said one onerous restriction was removed
by the cabinet on Monday. Under the current rules, organizers must present the
government with a list of names showing that at least 30 percent of workers in
a factory want a union. But that list is then turned over to the factory’s
owner to verify the authenticity of the names — a step that some owners have
used to engage in union busting and firing union supporters.

The list
will no longer be turned over to factory owners, Mr. Shipar said, removing “a
major barrier in getting registration of a trade union in a factory.”

Other
changes involve benefits. Severance and retirement payments will be increased
for workers with longer tenures; annual payments under a welfare fund will be
equalized so that every garment worker, regardless of the size of the factory
he or she works in, will receive the same amounts.

Government
officials also are creating a wage board that would begin discussions between
labor and management on setting a new minimum wage for garment workers. Mr.
Shipar said the process might take six months, but officials have said that
changes would be retroactive to May 1.

Bangladesh has roughly 5,000 garment
factories, employing more than 4.5 million people. Nearly 80 percent are women,
many poorly educated and from rural villages. In the past, even the low factory
wages were better than working in the fields. But as inflation has risen in the
last two years, garment workers have grown increasingly angry about low wages.
On Sunday, at least 100 garment factories had to be closed as workers staged
protests, demanding higher pay.

By
Monday afternoon, the death toll at RanaPlaza had reached 1,127
people. Work crews have almost completed clearing debris and searching for the
victims — yet families of missing workers continue to linger.

Local
labor groups sifting through the rubble have found labels or documents of
brands that were being produced by factories in the building. Several investor,
religious, consumer and labor groups are pressing these companies to sign the
new safety deal. Companies known to have obtained clothes from the factories
include Benetton, Cato Fashions, Children’s Place, el Corte Ingles and Loblaws.

Steven Greenhouse is the labor and workplace reporter for The
New York Times, having held that beat since October 1995, and Jim Yardley is
the South Asia Bureau Chief of The New York Times, based in New Delhi. He arrived in India in 2009, after a six-year posting as a
correspondent and bureau chief in China. He joined the Times in 1997
and has also worked as reporter on the metropolitan and national staffs.

Steven
Greenhouse reported from New York, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi. Julfikar Ali Manik contributed
reporting from Dhaka, Bangladesh.